


come be my love in the wet woods (and be my love in the rain)

by anupturnedboat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Lord Gendry Waters, Post-Season/Series 08, Reunions, Storms End, gendry being petty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23438173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anupturnedboat/pseuds/anupturnedboat
Summary: Unable to settle his raging thoughts, he’d set aside his lordly duties and his stupid new cloak, and got to work in the forge, hammering his feelings into steel, which was more malleable than Arya Stark ever was.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 34
Kudos: 194





	come be my love in the wet woods (and be my love in the rain)

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of a larger work, that isn't going to happen, but this was my favorite part. Reunion fics are like crack to me, so here's another, because there can never be enough of them.

“M’not going to swoon, now that you are back,” he mutters, shouldering the heavy door open, trying to ignore the way she’s leaning against the wall outside his chamber.Her hair has grown long, and is in a pretty, messy braid over her shoulder.He tries not to imagine unwinding it. “If you are even back, I mean.” His words stumble miserably out of his mouth, embarrassingly caught somewhere between frustration and longing.

Her gaze pierces him, and it feels like some kind of combustion, like the winds picking up before a storm, like something he won’t be able to control, and he has to look away.

“Why not?I’m the slayer of death after all,” she jests grimly, slipping in after him. “I’ve traveled the Sunset Sea, dueled a pirate or two.If I was a man, I’d be called a hero.They’d write songs for me, give me a castle.”

“I thought you didn’t want a castle m’lady,” he replies gruffly, removing his cloak.It’s a new one, modest, black with gold trim, and two iron stags at the clasp. It has been made especially for him, but the fit still feels off, or maybe it’s just him, he’s not used to such weighted material.

“I didn’t.”

He swallows hard, he already knows this, but the sting of rejection is this stupid stubborn thing squeezing his heart still.

“I don’t,” she corrects, dropping her eyes at last. 

She hadn’t wanted to be his wife, and he could swallow that, _he could_ , but she had left without a goodbye, as if he had never mattered to her at all.And that burned, it had ached, and it had followed him all the way to Storm’s End.

She runs her fingers over the book on his desk, “You’ve been avoiding me.” 

He feels heat rise up his neck, to the tips of his ears. He’d left the keep to settle a property line dispute that he certainly could have delegated to Davos while she had been shown a room.That was two days ago. 

He snatches the book out of her hands. “M’not,” he lies.

He wants to toss the book into the fire.Instead he adds another log, and puts the book on the mantle above. He’s a fool.Always has been.And now he’s a fool, who’s learned to read stupid troubadour songs, about love and love lost.Thinking about her on blustery nights, when the wind whips the rain against the shutters, wondering if she is out there, a tiny determined speck in the great big sea, if she’d ever come back, to him or home, or anywhere. 

“Liar.”

“I have duties,” he scowls. 

“You rode back this morning.”

“The seaward wall needed inspecting after all these damn storms.People expect things of me. I can’t just-” he flounders, waving in her direction.

“Its fine,” she relents, “I should have sent word, my apologies.”

He can feel her scrutiny, although her expression remains impassive. It’s disconcerting, how this strange creature that he once knew can turn him so inside out.She’s Arya, but she’s also not and it leaves him feeling out of sorts.He wants to ask-

_Why are you here, where have you been, did I ever mean anything to you at all?Are you back for good?_

But he dare not.

“I’m not sure it’s entirely appropriate for you to be here,” he grouses instead, pouring ale into a goblet.“It’s not proper for a lady to be in man’s private quarters,” he says handing it to her.She drinks half of it in one gulp.He pauses before pouring his own.She was never one for the drink.But that was long ago, he reminds himself, and there are probably dozens of other ways she has changed that he doesn’t know about. 

“When have we ever cared about what is appropriate?” 

“I’m a lord now,” he sternly reminds her, drinking his own ale, watching her over the rim.It’s hard not to think about the last night they had spent together.Lips, and flame, and desire in the dark of night is how remembers it, flickering shadows dancing on Winterfell’s ancient walls. For a moment he is certain she is remembering it too and the air turns electric, but then she slips past him, and he has to curl his hands into fists to stop from reaching out.

“You’re still just Gendry to me,” she shrugs pouring herself another drink. 

She kicks off her boots, and sits cross-legged on his bed. She’s wearing a light linen tunic with the sleeves rolled up, she’s still ice and steel, but the sun has warmed and colored her skin, and he can’t help noticing.There is a worldliness in the way she moves now that that makes him wonder where she has been, who she’s met along the way. 

A tender knot works its way up his chest, and he shoves it down with a grimace. He has no right to be jealous. _He doesn’t._

She licks her lips, a nervous gesture he hasn’t seen on her before, but she holds his gaze, and he feels that thing that lives between them igniting.The thing he doesn’t understand, the thing that stubbornly insists he not let her go, not even when she is already gone.

He wants to say something mean, he wants to wound.He wants to tease, and pull on her braid, like they were still children running about Acorn Hall.He wants to push her down into the furs on his bed, and shove her tunic aside, taste her skin.

He opts to stand there gaping at her like an idiot instead.

“Gendry I-”

There is a knock on the door that startles them both. “Sorry to interrupt,” Davos coughs, noticing Arya slipping off his bed and gathering her boots.“There’s been a raven from Kings Landing.”

Davos’ eyebrows are raised questioningly, but all Gendry can do is glower at him in return.

***

Once, when they were children, the Brotherhood had made camp atop High Heart, and Gendry had watched as the red priest crouched over the fire they had built divining the future in flames.Arya hadn’t liked the smoke in her eyes and wandered off with that idgit Ned, but Gendry had kept careful, skeptical watch.He hadn’t seen any kind of future in the flames except probably getting himself run through with a Lannister sword if he kept with this lot.But that was no matter of destiny, just plain and simple odds.

A storm had rolled in just then, drenching camp, and putting an end to Thoros’s prognosticating.Through the sputtering smoke Arya had appeared, Ned at her heels, her hair plastered to her forehead, sharp words on her tongue.Gendry couldn’t have explained the sudden thundering of his heart, or the surety that had overcome him in that moment.It was concerning and exhilarating, and he pushed it down with every other stupid thought he’d ever had, and been smart enough to not act on.

This isn’t like that ( _or maybe it is, he very well may have lost his wits at this point_ ) but when he comes down into the great hall, there is a roaring fire, and Arya has her feet propped up, nose in a book.She looks like she belongs here, like she has always been here, and it is a little like looking into the flames all those years ago.A little like looking at a shimmer of a future that could be, or might have been

“Looks like being a lord has made you soft,” she says coolly, without looking up from her book.“Everyone’s been up for hours.”

“Do you always start the day with an insult?” he huffs grumpily. He still doesn’t know why she’s come, or how long she’s planning on staying.He supposes he’s too much of a coward to ask.

She shrugs and goes back to her book.He eats while she reads in silence. 

He watches her profile as the dishes are cleared.“Thank you Ada,” he says to the young serving girl, who keeps glancing between the two of them.There are so many things he’s imagined saying, but now that she is here the words are caught in his throat.

“Why don’t you have a lady wife?” she asks snapping the book she has been reading closed, breaking the awkward silence. Her voice is neutral, her expression, unreadable, it’s infuriating.It’s like she’s jolted him with a lightning rod.What is he supposed to say to that because –

_Because I have been waiting for you to stop being stupid._

“What?” he stammers instead.

“You should have married.You need someone to run this place properly.And there’s the matter of heirs,” she says as if they are discussing coffers, or land deeds. As if it was any of her business.

“Maybe I don’t want to get married,” he replies sullenly. This is not the conversation he wants to be having.It’s one he has had to have one too many times with advisors, and Davos, and everyone else who thinks they know what he _should_ do.

“Why not?I am sure there’s been plenty of willing-”

“No time,” he interrupts.

“No time? That sounds like an excuse.”

“Not an excuse, lots of other things that need to be done, there was a war you know.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she barks, annoyed, kicking his shin under the table. “I know there was a war.”

“Oww,” he protests, “that fucking hurt.”

“Good.”

“Good? Really?”

Her eyes flash defiant.Fine, if she wants to have this conversation, then they can have this conversation. “What are you doing here Arya?” he finally erupts.There are others moving around, and he can feel their curious gazes. “Did you just come here to point out all the ways I am failing?” he accuses, leaning in, keeping his voice low. “Or were you hoping to break my heart all over again?”

“Do you feel like you are failing?”

She’s wearing that cool façade that reminds him of dark places, witches, red magic.He hates the way it looks on her.“What are we doing Arya?Are we going to talk about it? Or pretend like it never happened?” 

“I can’t check in on an old friend? Can it just be that?”

“Old friends,” he laughs mirthlessly, “is that what we are? Is that what you are doing? Checking in? It’s been two years!”

“Of course we’re friends,” she hisses. 

“You treat your friends well Lady Stark,” he says, knowing he’s being spiteful, that his hurt is bleeding through. 

She raises, one perfectly shaped eyebrow, “You’re right, it’s not my place to question your lordship.”

“Arya-”

She pushes her chair back, the unspoken thing raging between them. “My lord,” she says taking her leave. 

***

He has come to learn that being a lord means doing a drudgery of things, even when your mind is elsewhere.It is expectations, negotiations, decisions, and plans.Most days, he’d rather be in the forge where he could hammer steel into something useful, something solid, until his muscles ached, and he was too tired for unbidden thoughts.

He hasn’t seen Arya since yesterday.She hadn’t been in the great hall this morning. He’d even gotten up early.One of the stable boys said she had taken her horse, and Gendry had resigned himself to the fact that she’d probably left without saying goodbye once again. He shouldn’t be surprised, but he was. And hurt, yes, he was that too, mostly that.

Unable to settle his raging thoughts, he’d set aside his lordly duties and his stupid new cloak, and got to work in the forge, hammering his feelings into steel, which was more malleable than Arya Stark ever was. Then, as the day had turned into night, he’d emerged, sore, and sooty, and still sullen, and had spotted a fire in the distance. _Arya._

He can tell by the way air has suddenly gone dank that yet another storm is rolling in, so he rides out, irritated, wondering what she was thinking, always.

“What are you doing here?” she bristles.

“If you wanted to set up camp, you could have said something.I would have made sure you had better accommodations.”

“I don’t need better accommodations.I know how to take care of myself.”

“Aye, as you have said a million times.” He can’t keep the annoyance out of his voice, and she narrows her eyes at him.He knows that look. “The weather here is unpredictable,” he says quickly, watching the heavy, dark clouds gather ominously overhead.

“I can handle a little rain.”

“Humor me then,” he huffs. “What would people say, me leaving an esteemed guest to fend for herself in a storm?”

“What would people say of you being a horse’s ass to an esteemed guest for no reason?”

There it is. The elephant in the room, the thing that lives between them that they can’t talk about, he clenches his fists. “No reason?”

She has the decency to look momentarily guilty, before the cool façade she usually wears reappears. “I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye,” she says curtly, “I should have.We were friends once.” 

“Were we?”

“Of course we were. Before-,” she exhales, looking for the words, “before we were more than that.”

A ferocious crack of lightening lights up the sky, and then thunder rumbles overhead, so loud they both jump.The horses are restless, and take off at a gallop before either can get ahold of the reigns. She starts to stalk off in the direction of her horse, but Gendry pulls her back by the arm before she can get very far, “Come on,” he says kicking dirt onto her fire.“We’ll never catch them.” She helps him stomp out the trailing licks of flame with an angry look.

Fat drops of rain begin to fall in sheets as they walk back towards the keep.“Here,” he says sweeping his cloak over her to keep her dry.

She elbows him hard. “Go away.”

“You are insufferable,” he growls pulling her close and holding the cloak over both their heads.They still get completely drenched.

Once inside, he shakes out his cloak, “You look like a drowned cat.”

“I do not.”

He gives her an appraising look. “You do. Truly.”

She looks like she wants to murder him, but honestly, she always looks like that, so he bids her goodnight and heads to his chambers.

***

He’s lying in bed, listening to the storm rage outside.He’s never had such a nice room, such good food, boots that are not hand me downs, such a future – but it all feels so empty.Her unexpected arrival has reminded him, how lonely he is.For her, for family, for connection, how can be so greedy when he is so blessed by the riches he already has?

He’s not even close to sleep, but the pounding on his door, makes him bolt upright.“What in the seven hells now?” he groans.

He throws the door open. She has changed out of her wet clothes, and wound her hair back into the braid she now favors.Her lips are red from wine in the cask she is holding.He recognizes it from his Uncle Renly’s long abandoned stash in the cellar.

“You’ve been sneaking around,” he nods at the cask in her hand.

“Exploring,” she counters with a shrug.

She is close, and his eyes go to her lips before he can stop himself.If she notices, she doesn’t react.Instead her eyes are far away again, a wall between them like always. 

“Do you remember when we ran away from  Harrenhal?” 

He does, of course.Rain soaked, hungry, tired.He’d followed her then, up hills, through forests, across a river - _like a fool_. He hadn’t even known why.They’d been so young. “Why are you thinking of that now?” he asks, closing the door. She ignores the chair he holds out to her and climbs into his bed instead.

“It would have been faster, to go on my own,” she muses.“You and Hot Pie were slow and loud. It’s probably how they found us so easily.”

“I seem to remember keeping you from falling off your horse, m’lady,” he gruffly reminds her.It earns him a small smile, tugging at the corner of her lips. “Too damn stubborn to stop even though you couldn’t keep your eyes open,” he finishes, settling onto the bed at a respectable distance. 

“But I couldn’t bear to leave you behind,” she admits, “you were my family, all that I had, my pack, and I loved you then.

The word _loved_ bounces around his mind, and he wants to ask, he wants to _know_ , but he has no idea where this train of thought is coming from, so he waits. He shouldn’t hope, _he shouldn’t,_ she is going to break his heart, and he knows this. He reaches for her hand anyway.

“I was just a child,” she continues, “I didn’t know what it meant.Sometimes I think about that girl, about how I would have been if we’d found Robb and mother in time.Maybe I would have been the kind of lady to say yes.” 

“Are you that kind of lady now?” he questions, hating himself for asking.He knows Arya Stark.He knows what the answer will be.

She looks at their intertwined fingers, then up at him. “I’m never going to be. That is why I couldn’t accept your proposal.”

He nods like he knows this, _he does_ , but he had to ask. 

She reaches her other hand to his face, cups his jaw and he leans in, like the fool he is, his heart in his throat.“But, when I’m out there, on a ship, or in a foreign land, surrounded by people I don’t know, the thing that I am always missing is you. I didn’t anticipate it, I didn’t know-” she tries to explain. 

“What are saying then?”

“Will you have me like this?Not as a lady, or a princess, just this? Will it be enough?”

“Don’t be stupid,” he whispers gruffly, raising their entwined hands and kissing her knuckles. She kisses him then, soft and slow, and not at all like the last time. He’s not sure where her head is at, what any of this means.Maybe he shouldn’t ask, maybe he should just accept what she has to give, but –

“Are you drunk?” he asks pulling away.The realization dawning on him that maybe this is the only way he gets this, gets her.When she is drunk or sure she is going to die.

“Not drunk.” 

He feels drunk, this close to her, his hand cupping her ear. He lets his finger trail down her neck, down the length of the braid. He tugs at the tie, “okay then, that’s good.We shouldn’t-“

“Stop talking,” she commands softly pushing him down. His fingers tug her braid the rest of the way undone.


End file.
